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The New Frontier for MLPs

Barron's MLP Roundtable participants offer their wisdom on the best types of funds and top companies.

Master limited partnerships posted huge gains in the first half of 2014. Aided by the Federal Reserve's low-interest-rate policies, which allow MLPs to borrow cheaply while passing on the lion's share of their earnings to investors, MLPs gained 16.3% by the end of June, according to the benchmark Alerian MLP Index. But when financial markets hit a rough patch this summer amid worries of widespread overvaluation, MLPs got hit hard, with the same index tumbling 5.2% since then.